Oil-cooler



R. C. JONES.

OIL COOLER.

APPLICATION FILED OCT-26. 1918. 4

Patented Oct. 19, 1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

R. G. JONES.

OIL COOLER. APPLICATION FILED ochze, 1918.

1,355,980. Patentd 0ct.19,-1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2- I chinery.

ITE ES PATENTVO ica.

RUSSELL 0. tones, or BaomrvrLLn'zmw-Yomc ASSIGNOR To run Garsoon RUSSELL oomrm, A oonrona'rron or DELAWARE.

Specification of Letters Patent;

. Patented Oct. 19,1920.

Application filed October 26, 1918. w m. 259.798.

others skilled in the art to which it apper-.

tains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to liquid. coollng apparatus and ha for its object to provide an apparatus for facilitating the exchange of heat from one liquid in circulation to ana other, the invention being particularly ap plicable to the-cooling of lubricatlng 011 in circulation through engines or similar ma- It, has heretofore been necessary to thoroughly agitate lubricating oil in its passage through a cooling apparatus for the reason that the oil has a tendency to form a'film on the cooled surfaces over which it is circulated, and as the film of oil is a poor conductor of heat it acts in effect to insulate that part of the cooling surface on which the film forms, and virtually destroy its usefulness. If the oil is sufliciently agitated, the film-forming tendency is materially lessened, and the most successful coolers heretofore have been those in which the water or other cooling liquid is circulated through the tubes of the cooler and oil is circulated in the shell or other container where it is more or less agitated bypassing over the tubes.

I have found, however, thatsuperior cooling effects may be hadiwith coolers in which the oil or other liquid to be cooled is circulated through the tubes and the cooling liquid is circulated through the shell by usin a novel tube design constructed to be sel i cleaning, that is to say, so constructed that the flow of the oil through the tube serves to clean off the 'oil as it attempts to thicken on the surface of the tube.

.My improved tube construction is particularly advantageous when used in'the U- tube form of cooler in which the tubes are bent to U-shape and both ends of the tube supported in a single header in the cooler shell with the intermediate portion of the tion is'conce'rn'ed} l In salddraw ngs Figure 1 is a hor zontal construction a mucli greater'rigidity of the tube in proportlon to .it's'Y-length 'an'd'weight is secured, so that interior supports for the curved ends of the tubes maybe entirely dispensed with, I

In my co-pending applic'atio'm ser. No.

259,797 filed concurrently herewith, I have described various modifications whereby the tubes are self-cleaning in} the manner described, and any of the tubedesi'gns shown I in that application-may be 3 loyed in the U-type construction, butthev f tube unsupported. .LWith mytube herein shown and d'escribed "has peculiar; advantages 1n the U+tube cooler and it is 1 with suchty'pe ofrooler'that this 'applica sectional viewfshowing the arrangement of the tubes in the-cooler; Fig. 2is1a U tlon on line 2--2 of Fi 1; Fig.3 "i

spectlve view of one o the tubes; Fig.4'is

a vertical longitudinal section of a cooler havlng a modified form of tube; Fig; 5 is a perspective view. of the tube employed in the cooler shown in Fig. 4; and Fig. 6 is a perspective view of a further modification of the tube which maybe emplo ed with ad vantage in the cooler shown in ig. 4.

Referring to the drawings, particularly Figs. 1, 2 and 3, 1 indicates the shell of the cooler herein shown as of the ordinary substantially cylindrical construction open at each end and provided with inlet and outlet passages 2 and 3 for the heat-absorbing fiuid. The fluid used to absorb the heat from the oil is .usually'water and it will be understood that water in sufiicient quantity will'be freely circulated through the shell, entering the inlet passage 2, passing around the interior middle baflle 4 and thence through the exit passage 3 by means of a suitable circulating pump or other appara= tus, not shown.

The tubes 5 are-wholly supported in a header or tube plate 6, the tube being expanded or otherwise secured in the tube plate 6 in any approved manner. The tube plate 6 is attached to the end of the shell by means of a feed drum 8 which is clamped to the back of the plate by suitable bolts 9. The feed drum is divided into two compartments 7 and 11, respectively, by means of a,

one side of t e bafiieplate 4 and the other leg at the other side in the usual manner, so that one end of each of the tubes is connected to the compartment '7 of the feed drum while the other ends of the tubes are connectedto the compartment 11, the preferred arrangement being such that the coolingliquid flows in the opposite direction to the liquid being cooled, after the manner of a counter-current heater.

The tubes employed in my improved cooler are not round, as heretofore employed, but are flattened and may be formed by taking an ordinary round tube and. running it through rollers so as to flatten it through its entire len h except at its ends to approximately t e cross section shown in Fig. 2, the ends of the tubes being left round so that they may be attached to the tube plate by the ordinary-methods now in use.

It will be understood that in the cooler shown in Figs. land 2, the baflie plate 4 side. v The tube of this design forms an ex-.

is arranged vertically in the shell instead of horizontally and that the tubesare curved with one flat face on the inside of the bend,

in which direction the tubes can; be bent much more readily than roundtubes, and with muchless stress of the metal as will bev obvious The two legs of the tube are attached to the tube plate 6 in a substantially horizontal plane so that the long diameter of the tube cross section extends vertically, or, in other words, the tubes are arran ed edgewise in the shell, in which position t ey are much more rigid than ordinary round tubes and have much greater strength-to resistsagging'at the unsupported intermediate portions. By this arrangement tubes much longer in proportion to their cross sectional area than heretofore employed may have the flat faces of their two legs in the same plane and are arranged in the shell with one leg vertically over the other.- In this form of the cooler theshell is divided into two compartments by a horizontal baflle, as indicated in Fig. 2, so that all the tubes have one end attached to the tube plate at one sideof the 'bafile and their other'ends the tube plate at the other;

all attached to I ceedingly rigid structure and is'particularly advantageous where extra long tubes areto be used." The tube may be formed advanta geously by first bending the round tube to U-shape and then flattening all of the tube except the short lengths'at the ends which are inserted in the tube plate;

The'tube 5', shown in Fig. 6 is closely similar to the tube 5 andis to be arranged in the same way in the shell. This tube has its straight portions flattened in the same manner as the legs of tube 5 but the intermediate curved portion is left round. These tubes may be conveniently made by flatten-1 ing a round tube at two different points in its length and then bending the tube at the intermediate portion which is left round.

"geal and adhere t 'eretou- Any appreciable congealing of the oil on the surface ofthe tube-will, due to the short distance between the opposite walls {ofthe tube, tend to obstruct the'tube,;so thatthe force of the moving stream through the tube will wash the ,80 i 7 By flattening the tubein themanner de- 1 scribed'the crosssectional area of the tube film away, A filmfof congealed oil of the same thickness on'a'round tube would have little effect on thebore ofthe tube and would not be washed off unless "the velocity of the oil 'wasso high as to be but little cooled in its passage through the same length of tube..

' Also, with; the fluid in a thin stream, the entire volume'of oil-is in close proximity to the surface of the tube during its passage through the cooler, thereby effecting uniform and rapid cooling of the oil.

It will of course be understood that the shell construction selected for illustration is by way of example only and that the invention is not to be considered limited in any sense thereto.

It will also be understood that the tube construction and its arrangement within the shell may be varied without de arting from .8. more the spirit of the invention as efined in the appended claims. v

' claim: I a

1. In an apparatus for effecting the (an change of heat from. one fluid to another,

the combination of a shell or vessel for one of the fluids, tubes for the other fluid, said.

long axisof thelr'crosssectionina' vertical r 2. In an apparatus for. effecting the exchange of heat from onefluid to another, the,

plane.

combination of a 'shellQor vessel for oneof the fluids, tubes forthe other fluid, said tubes being flattened throughout the major por- 'lto i tion of their length to bring the opposite walls close together to form the circulating fluid into a thin stream with all parts in close proximity to the tube walls, said tubes being of U-shape with the fiat faces of their two straight portions in the same plane and supported in the shell with the two legs of the' U in substantially the same vertical plane.

3. In an apparatus for effecting the exchange of heat from one fluid to another, the

combination of a shell or vessel for one of the fluids, tubes for the other fluid, saidtubes having end portions of circular cross section, an intermediate portion of a perimeter substantially equal to the circumference of the end portions but flattened to bring the opposite walls close together to form the circulating fluid into a thin stream with all parts in close proximity to the tube walls, said tubes being of U-shape with the fiat faces of their two straight portions in the same plane and supported in the shell with the two legs of the U in substantially the same vertical plane.

In testimony whereof I aflix my signature.

RUSSELL C. JONES. 

